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Slice of Chicago Style pizza with tomatoes on top.This Chicago Style Pizza is a lighter and healthier version, but still AMAZING! It still has all of the gooey mozzarella cheese, but uses homemade turkey Italian Sausage, that's so delicious!

Chicago Style Pizza with Chicken Sausage

This Chicago Pizza with Chicken Sausage is a deep dish pizza lover's dream! It's a pizza pie that has loads of ooey-gooey cheese, topped with a layer of salty and herbed sweet Italian Chicken sausage, topped with bright and fresh tomatoes and a sprinkle of parmesan. It is thick, hearty, filling, and delicious! #pizza #glutenfree #easydinner #dinner #familydinner

Course Main Course
Cuisine American, Italian
Keyword chicago recipes, deep dish pizza, ground chicken, homemade pizza
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Servings 2 pizzas
Author Carrie Tyler

Ingredients

Crust Chicago Style Pizza (2 pizzas)

  • 3 ¼ cups All Purpose Flour
  • ½ cup Semolina or Cornmeal
  • 1 teaspoon Salt
  • 1 tablespoon Sugar, granulated
  • 1 packet Instant Yeast (2 and ¼ teaspoons in a packet) (I used Red Star Platinum yeast)
  • 1 ¼ cups Lukewarm water (around 90 F degrees)
  • ¼ cup Melted Butter, salted (COOLED, not hot)
  • ¼ cup Softened Butter, salted
  • 1 tablespoon Olive Oil

Ground Italian Chicken Sausage (2 pizzas)

  • 32 ounces Ground chicken
  • 4 cloves Garlic, minced
  • 6 Tablespoons Parsley, Chopped
  • 2 teaspoon Fennel Seed
  • 2 teaspoon Salt
  • 2 teaspoon Fresh Ground Pepper

Pizza layering ingredients (2 pizzas)

  • 2 Tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • 56 ounces San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes (two 28 ounce cans)
  • 16-20 Deli Mozzarella Slices, Low Moisture
  • 8 Tablespoons Parmesan Cheese, grated

Instructions

Make the Dough (at least 2-3 hours in advance to allow for rising)

  1. Melt the ¼ cup butter and let it cool to room temperature.

  2. In a large mixing bowl (it's a lot of dough!), combine the dry ingredients: flour, semolina or cornmeal, salt, sugar, and instant yeast. Stir to combine.

  3. Using a mixing spoon (not a whisk) mix in the warm water and cooled melted butter. Mix until all of the dry ingredients are moist. Switch to your hands and knead the dough in the bowl for 4-5 minutes. Form a ball with the dough.

  4. In a separate clean large bowl, add the olive oil and coat the sides. Add the ball of dough to the bowl and roll around to coat it in the oil. Cover the bowl tightly with aluminum foil or plastic wrap. Keep the bowl in a room temperature to warm temperature (do not place in the refrigerator) to rise for 1-2 hours or until it doubles in size.

  5. After the dough doubles in size, 'punch' the dough down in the center to release the air. Flour a clean flat surface and roll the dough out to rectangle that is about 15-17 inches long. Spread the softened butter out across the entire dough. Gently roll the dough the long way so that you have a long 15-17 inch log. Using a knife, cut the dough log in half. Separately roll each half into a ball, as these are the 2 pizza crusts. Place the 2 balls back into the oiled bowl, cover the bowl again. This time, place in the refrigerator to rise for 1 additional hour.

Make Ground Italian Chicken Sausage

  1. Chop the parsley and mince the garlic.

  2. Add the ground chicken to a large mixing bowl. To the chicken, add the minced garlic, 3 Tbls of the chopped parsley (save 1 tbls for garnish), 1 teaspoon of fennel seed, 1 teaspoon Salt, ½ teaspoon fresh ground pepper.  Mix to combine and store in the refrigerator in an airtight container until ready to use.

Assemble & Bake Pizza

  1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Spray two 8-9″ round pans with Olive Oil cooking spray or rub with Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

  2. Open the whole peeled tomatoes and place into a large bowl. Put a strainer over a bowl and squeeze and mash the whole tomatoes in your hands over the strainer keeping big chunks of tomato in the strainer and allowing all of the excess liquid to fall through into the bowl.  Make sure that you really strain the liquid out so that it doesn’t make the pizza soggy. Set aside.

  3. On a floured surface, bring one of the dough balls from the bowl in the fridge and roll it out to about 12 inches. Gently place the dough into one of the pans and press the sides up along the interior sides. Do this for second pizza dough and pan next.

  4. Layer the mozzarella slices all over the bottom, breaking up the slices as needed to created an even layer in both pizzas.  

  5. Next, split the chicken Italian sausage mixture in half in it's storage container. Spread one half completely cover the cheese in a single layer. Do the same with the remaining half of the sausage in the other pizza.

  6. Next, spread the tomatoes all over the sausage for both pizzas.

  7. Sprinkle grated parmesan cheese on top and bake in a 450 degree oven for 30-35 minutes until the crust is golden brown.  Let sit for 5 minutes.

  8. Slice and enjoy!